Ministry to orphans and other vulnerable children

Julian writes:-
We recognise that God cares for those who are in need. In James 1: 27 we read that: 'religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world'.

Our vision concerning orphans

What help do orphans require?
We recognise that the majority of orphans in Malawi do not experience the following:

Our proposal: Foster homes, not orphanages
For each child that we are able to assist we want to give him a home where he can be cared for by loving guardians, who would foster him and care for him as if he were a natural member of their family. We have begun with just one home, where two members of our leadership team, John and Betha, have accepted 6 orphans into their family.

We see our role being one of encouraging and training the guardians, in addition to providing the means whereby they can care  for the children. In practice this means enabling them to live in a dry and clean house, providing the money to enable them to buy food, clothing, proper beds and bedding, mosquito netting, soap, toothpaste and brushes,  and body oils. We have arranged for the children to attend a good private school, with our paying their fees.
Further, we pay for medical care. The children have never had treatment for intestinal worms for example.
The children we are currently caring for in this way are:
Paul - approximate age 7/8 years. Before he came to us Paul had been living rough, moving from village to village finding shelter and food wherever he could, and with whomever would allow him to stay with them. Reportedly, Paul would oftentimes be found naked, living more as an animal than a young boy. We soon found out he had never been to school and indeed never even held a pencil.
Makalidwe (known to us as 'Maka')  - approximately 8 years.
Femos (pronounced 'famous') - approximately 6 years. Femos and Maka are brothers. They were living with an older sister after their parents had died. Once she had married and begun her own family she found it impossible to continue to care for the boys who were beginning to be neglected and were not fed properly.
Lunia   - approximate age 7 years.
Brenda - approximate age 4 years. Brenda and Lunia are sisters. After the death of their mother their father sent them away to live with relatives, who happened to be members of our church. The time came when that family (who already had 3 children of their own) were not managing to care properly for the sisters, and Brenda was showing definite signs of malnourishent. With the approval of the father the girls came to live with us at the time that the marriage of the couple who had been caring for them began to fail.
Gift - approximate age 4 years. Gift's father died and his mother found it impossible to continue to care for Gift as well as her other children. John is a relation to the deceased father, and it was natural for him to be asked to care for Gift when it became obvious that the mother was failing to do so.